


In Peace, Such War

by valancy_joy



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 08:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valancy_joy/pseuds/valancy_joy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a bad day, and James' thoughts are unsettled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Peace, Such War

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Lewis Summer Challenge 2012. 
> 
> A million thanks to carolyn_claire for her able beta-ing. She made this so much better. Any remaining mistakes are all down to me and the vagaries of technology.

Frustrated, James thumps his head back into the sofa cushions, his fingerings clumsy with too much work and too little sleep. He knows he should stop, should rest, but he can't seem to let it go. Too many things, too many thoughts, all the loose ends, that poor family they'd had to notify early yesterday morning. He hates the suicides. Hates them for himself and for the sadness he can see in Lewis' eyes and in the tightness of his hands on the steering wheel struggling to weave their car through the crowded streets of Oxford.

Angry, he rakes his fingers across the strings, a harsh discordant jangle of protest against everything pressing in on him, then stops and quiets them by a gentle application of his hand.

He gathers his guitar closer to him, an unvoiced apology to the creature in his arms, and takes a few deep breaths. He'd done a meditation course once, hoping it might help him find some focus. Couldn't hurt, he’d thought, until he'd tried to still his mind, and found that his mind is one that doesn't like to be still. But here, tonight, a few deep breaths to order his thoughts might help.

Long slow breaths, concentrating not on himself but the world around him. The windows are open, a soft nighttime breeze fluttering into his flat. The faint chime of eleven rings from a distant church. There is the smell of damp pavement from the rain shower earlier in the evening. Somewhere a dog is barking, and there’s the murmur of conversations from the flat opposite, where they seem to be having some sort of drinks do. Earlier today, he and Lewis had had to interrupt a dinner party to bring in a bio-chemist, who looked not unlike a spaniel, for questioning. There were still things about the case that didn't add up. The subsequent interview, and the chasing down of the professor's alibi had made him late to rehearsal, and that hadn't gone down so well, but they are juggling three open cases, at the moment. He only has to much to give.

He settles his guitar back in his arms and tries once more to master the melody of the madrigal they'd been working on at rehearsal.

I live, and yet methinks I do not breathe;  
I thirst and drink, I drink and thirst again;  
I sleep and yet do dream I am awake;  
I hope for that I have; I have and want:  
I sing and sigh; I love and hate at once.  
O, tell me, restless soul, what uncouth jar  
Doth cause in store such want, in peace such war.

He loves this piece, and hates that he’s not doing it justice. Though it’s far from “the yeare of our Lord sixteen hundred and nine,” when this madrigal was written, Hathaway thinks he'd like to stand John Wilbye to a pint or three. He suspects they’d have plenty to talk about.

"Face it Hathaway, you've got too many thoughts jumbled up in that great lumpen head of yours."

So for now, he resigns himself to being trapped inside his own head, and, with a sigh, unfolds himself from his sofa, sets his guitar in its stand, picks up his cigarettes and steps outside alone into the dark, to think.


End file.
